


With love from Bahrain

by evelitan



Category: Bearing & Wells
Genre: Adventure & Romance, Archaeology, F/F
Language: English
Status: In-Progress
Published: 2018-07-09
Updated: 2018-07-09
Packaged: 2019-06-07 22:33:49
Rating: Mature
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,463
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/15229395
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/evelitan/pseuds/evelitan
Summary: AU. Completely AU, an archaeological one though. Helena works for the archaeology department in Yale University, she has a quiet life up until her mentor is brutally killed because of a secret he wasn’t supposed to find out. The story will take Helena on a big adventure where of course she’ll meet a very special person and make some new friends along the way. If you like archeology and adventure give it a try guys.





	With love from Bahrain

**Author's Note:**

> Hi guys!! I’m so glad to be able to still post here. Good news, for now, the law hasn’t passed, now let’s hope that it stays this way in September as well. So as for this fic, I had this idea while ago, but didn’t have the time to write it down, so now I decided to give it a try. I am writing these fics in my only spare time in the evenings so pardon all the mistakes. This fic would be a multi-chapter one, but not too long. I hope you like this one!
> 
> *Yes "papyruses" is the plural of "papyrus" (papyri is also valid).

[New Haven, US]

Almost 12 months after Helena Wells had finished her Ph.D. cum laude in Archeology, she was still working at the same museum she did when she first started the program.

True, giving the current state of the world economy, archeological discoveries weren`t the thing that interested much the people, but stopping the cultural advances would have been equal to another future crisis, much bigger than the current economic one. Most people thought that everything worth discovering was already discovered, but Helena never argued with such people, there was no point in arguing with fools after all.

It was a nice, sunny day, or at least that`s what looked like from behind the museum windows, where a young woman dressed in a long, white lab coat, was walking through the corridors with a careful grip on a hundred years old parchment that was being transferred from the display area in one of the exposition rooms to the restoration department. She put down the old document as if it was going to break even from the slightest movement, put aside her lab coat and set foot towards the café that was on the other side of the street. It was finally time for her lunch break and on days such as today, when a budding migraine was lurking in the back of her skull, she welcomed the distraction.

Entering gracefully the French bakery/ café across the street called “Déjà Vu”. She looked around for a few seconds. After a moment, a pair of flying hands were waving at her she went straight to the table that was positioned near the window, where the other two girls that were waiting had saved her a seat. Her favorite thing about this particular place was the smell of freshly made blueberry croissants and orange muffins that filled the air inside and warmed her heart.

"Hi, Hel!" - A girl with warm brown eyes and dark, earthy locks that framed her face greeted her. Nadya was wearing a simple white t-shirt and toffee colored pants, but the outfit complimented her natural tan complexion. 

"You look tired today. Are you working on a new field project proposal?" - Nadya asked with curiosity.

"Actually, I just returned the Bahrain papyrus to the lab; I wanted to examine it again, the board agreed on trying to recreate the missing piece with the new technology we borrowed from the Smithsonian. Unfortunately, I don`t think we`ll be going out in the field any time soon, not unless we have absolute proof about the Holy Grail at least." - said Helena with sincere irony in her voice. 

"Hey, guys, look at that! - Gasped the girl sitting in front of Helena and Nadya. Katherine was wearing a red dress with flower motives and her eyes were the thing that everyone noticed at first. One was a warm hazel color whilst the other was greyish going toward blue.

That particular feature of hers never failed to become her most attractive trade and Nadya often joked she agreed to their first date a year ago because of her eyes. However, this time, Katherine was focused on the TV in the corner of the wall.

The TV inside "Deja Vu" was always set on the news channel and initially, the girls wandered why, but after meeting, the owner of the bakery- café, a young, very educated and equally handsome man in his early thirties, they understood the reason. Even though his curly hair and charming smile attracted many of the customers here, Anri's English needed a lot of work and so he always watched the news broadcast.

The girls have been coming to that café every Monday and Friday for almost 3 years now, ever since they began their MAs, but for the first time in all those years, they actually paid attention to what the news broadcast was saying.

The TV was showing a crime scene investigation, taking place at a badly burned house in the surrounding area of the city. The thing that caught Katherine`s attention was the news written on the screen: “Famous archaeologist Dr. Larsen, head of the team that discovered the third Barbar temple in Bahrain in 1954, dies tragically in a robbery gone bad at his home”.  

The girls were watching with their eyes wide open and even though all of them were shocked at the news, Helena was the only one that felt her eyes burning from the unshed tears that were about to spill down her cheeks. Her chest was hurting and her breathing was getting erratic, she needed to get out of the cafe that suddenly seemed too small for her. Jumping from her seat, Helena ran to the door and quickly pushed it open.

Just outside the bakery, she bent down and tried to get her breathing under control and a second later two pairs of arms were gently rubbing her back and both Nadya and Katherine were by her side, talking slowly, trying to calm down their friend.

"I have to go there." - Helena finally managed to construct a full sentence.

"I'll get us a cab." - Katherine said.

"You don't..." - The Brit tried to argue that they didn't need to go with her, but Nadya wouldn't hear any of it.

"Yes, we do. Come on, now." - The brunette said and walked with her arm draped around Helena's waist to the taxi that was already waiting for them.   Some twenty minutes later when they arrived at the crime scene and saw the badly burned house, Helena and her two friends, started looking around, searching for the detective in charge of the investigation in order to obtain at least some reliable information. 

Because of the crowd that had gathered to watch, the police were placing yellow tape around the perimeter to avoid contamination of the scene and that was then Nadya saw a familiar face from her time as undergrad journalist at UCLA.

The girl had opted to change careers in the last year of her journalism degree because she had the misfortune to try to write her final project on a corrupt politician. Georgetown's Senator was involved in some scandal with underage prostitutes back then and some of the girls agreed to talk to her about it in hopes of justice. Nadya was the best in her investigative journalism class, she provided enough evidence for the case, but the slug's attorney argued that they were obtained in an illegal matter and the judge was an old gold buddy of the senator, so he ruled in his favor. Nadya just couldn't believe how manipulative money and power could be, so she decided that she wasn't going to be part of it, if people wanted to remain ignorant who was she to change their minds? And that's how she found herself moving from one end of the country to another and signing up for an archeology degree.

Back to the present moment, Nadya couldn't have been happier to see Henry Dovak. Two years older than her, handsome black men that proudly wore his police uniform and polished his badge every weekend, Henry and Nadya had grown up together and when she moved back home from UCLA, they rebuilt their childhood friendship.

"Henry! Hey, Dovak!" - Nadya called after one of the police officers and waved her hands until he turned around and made his way to her.

"Nadya! What are you doing here?" - He asked surprised as he eyes his friend and the girls behind her.

"I am here for a friend." - She said with a nod in Helena's direction.

"Can you tell us what's going on?" - Nadya asked.

"Come on, you know I can't talk about an ongoing investigation." - Henry tried to keep his voice between a whisper and a grumble. He could get into a lot of trouble after all.

"I won't say a word, I promise. Look, my friend knew the professor, please we just want to know what happened."

"Nadya, we are only beginning to investigate." - He said trying to make the girl drop the subject.

"The news was aired half an hour ago, but the last truck with fireman (minus the two over there) pulled out just as we came so that means that the fire was already stopped when the images appeared in the press, so you guys must have been here ever earlier, at least a couple of hours judging from the extensive damage to the house.  So come on, you have to have a working theory at least." - Nadya cornered him.  

Henry was speechless, his friend was right and she wasn't a journalist anymore so technically nobody would know he talked to her.

"Okay, fine." - He finally agreed reluctantly.

"Come here." - He said and gently grabbed her by the elbow, dragging her to the side and taking out his detective notepad and pen, imitating taking testimonies from her.

"Look, officially we still don't know what happened, but the fire wasn't an accident. When we got here, the area smelled of gasoline and the fire department needed four whole hours to extinguish the flames."

Nadya was listening carefully to the explanation, but her curiosity was only increasing by the minute.

"So do you know yet if something is missing from the house?" - She asked intrigued.

"We are still waiting for the two firemen left here to give us the OK to enter the building. Why are you so interested in this? Did you knew the victim?"  - Henry asked getting suspicious that there was more to the story than Nadya had originally shared.

"My friends and I were starting the second year of our archeology Ph. Ds and the professor came for a few seminars. He is … was one of the best archeologists, so many of us attended his guest lectures.

While the two of them were talking aside from the others, Katherine was still trying to soothe Helena who was obviously quite upset about the death of Dr. Peter Larsen and her reaction didn`t pass by unnoticed by the young detective either.  

"And your friend...? She seems very upset to be just a former student?" - Henry nodded his head towards Helena who was standing there looking at the burnt property with rimmed red eyes.

 

"Ugh, don`t even think about it Henry, I've seen far too many police movies to know what you are probably thinking right now. Helena and Dr. Larsen were indeed closer than any other student and professor. After one of his guest lectures, she went and told him that there was a mistake in one of his translations of the papyruses he presented and after a brief debate, it turned out she was right, so he offered her an after class work with him. They really connected over their passion for the Barbar culture, especially with him being the one to discover the third temple in Bahrain." - She explained.

"I see … and don't you think that their relationship might have been something more than professional?" - Henry suggested again and Nadya rolled her eyes.

"You know I have to ask these questions." - He said sternly, he took pride in doing his job the best way he could and sometimes that meant having to ask even the callous questions.

"I'm sure it was more." - Nadya answered with resolve.

"They were friends, good friends. I think that they spent the last Thanksgiving day together, but come on, give them a break, neither Helena nor the doctor had any other family left, he was like a father to her."

"Hmm... okay." - He finally said, dropping the subject, for now, there would be time to further investigate later if need be.

"Look, I have to go back to the crime scene or the others might get suspicious." - Henry said.

"Sure, I don't want to get you in trouble." - Nadya said giving him her puppy eyes look and Henry laughed.

"You are killing me." - He said and put back his empty notepad in his pocket.

"All I'm asking is to keep me informed. Please." - She added with a serious voice.

"Okay, okay." - He relented.

"But you let me do my job first." - The detective said with a quirked eyebrow.

"Deal. Thank you, buddy, don't forget to bring the beer on Friday." - She said with a smile and turned to walk back to her friends leaving the detective shaking his head and going back to his work.

"Come on guys, there is nothing more we can do here." - Nadya said as she moved back to the road to catch a taxi.

"What did he say?" - Asked Katherine, but Helena remained quiet. She wanted to know of course, but her mind was occupied with other thoughts and memories at the moment.

"I'll tell you everything when we get home, I promise." - She told them.

"But we still have half a day's work at the University." - Helena protested. She didn't want to just go back home and think about the professor's misfortune.

"We'll just call in sick, we haven't had a vacation day ever since we started our programs if anything the administration will be thanking us." - Katherine said.

The three of them had been working non-stop and the administration clerks always pestered them about finally taking their vacation days because of the huge amount of paperwork unused vacation days presented.

 

[A few days later…]

Helena was sitting on the sofa in her apartment, watching the news hoping to see or hear something new about the investigation, but there was nothing, Nadya's friend, the detective hadn't called yet. From the University had given her a few days off on a personal leave and her friends were trying to lift up her spirits every day, they all lived together after all.

 

It was around midday already and the day seemed to be dragging itself slower than usually. Just as Helena put the kettle on the stove, there was a light knock on the door, so light that at first Helena thought she had imagined it. However, after the knock sounded again, this time with more intensity, the woman quickly got up from the sofa by the window and walked rapidly to the door.

 

When Helena opened the door, she was expecting one of her roommates that had forgotten her keys again, but instead, she found a tall, middle-aged man, with greyish short hair, dressed in a black suit and wearing a blue collar shirt and tie. Judging from the looks of his shoes, he was an office worker and from the Rolex on his left wrist, Helena was under the impression that the gentleman in front of her was in fact either a lawyer or an executive director of some company.

"Good afternoon, are you Miss Wells, Helena Wells?" – asked politely the man.

 

 

_TBC…_

**Author's Note:**

> Please, keep in mind that all the names, places and finds are invented, some might resemble real-life figures, but apart from that, it’s all just a product of my imagination. Every kudos and comment is deeply appreciated!


End file.
